Could Shakespeare and Edmund Campion ever have met? Rowan Williams tells Mark Lawson why he has created an encounter between them by way of a play

Most of those who leave a major public post are pressured by publishers for their memoirs, and Rowan Williams admits that there have been such approaches since he retired as Archbishop of Canterbury in 2012. “But there’s nothing I’d want to do less,” he laughs.

More originally for a retiree from headline life – although he now holds the lower-profile post of Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge – the 104th holder of the see of Canterbury has written a stage play, Shakeshafte, which will be premiered this week by the Swansea Little Theatre company, with whom the former Archbishop acted during his childhood in the city.